Zoom Phones Making Desktop Office Phones Harder to Find

Office phones will become harder to find at CMS, as the agency gradually replaces desktop phones with a new Zoom-based telephone feature (on GFE computers). Once active, you will be able to make and answer calls directly from the app using your regular office number.

With most CMS employees working remotely now, use of desktop phones has declined. Yet the office phone is still an important working tool that many rely on to do their jobs. The challenge facing OIT was how to resolve the gap between declining usage and the business need for a work phone.

“With the outset of the global pandemic a few years back, and everybody leaving their offices to work remotely, it left a serious gap in being able to make and receive business phone calls,” said IUSG Technical Advisor Wade Zarriello. "The workarounds were not ideal. Those employees who didn't have a government-issued phone were either using their personal phones or their home phones, or just not making calls at all. So they essentially weren't able to make or receive calls to beneficiaries."

The issue surfaced early during the pandemic from regional employees who deal with the public. Many were apprehensive about making business calls on their personal phones. About a year ago, the agency procured and configured the Zoom Phone software option.  

“It’s really a soft phone module that activates on a user’s Zoom client – mobile or desktop – it opens another tab for them once it’s activated,” Zarriello says. “It’s basically just a phone icon that allows you to send or receive external and internal phone calls. It worked because everyone was on Zoom already and everyone was familiar and liked the tool. So we started offering that as an option in pilot phases about 18 months ago.”

Users embraced the feature, but many indicated they wanted their old office phone numbers back because it was ingrained in everything they sent out to clients and all the CMS directors. And those in regional roles indicated a preference for local area codes, which are more likely to be recognized and responded to by those receiving calls.   

Both issues were eventually addressed in subsequent phases and employees could choose their old office numbers and local area codes.  Today, 1,800 CMS employees are using Zoom Phone and are able to make or receive calls when they are logged in on Zoom from any device. Plans to migrate all 5,500 full-time remote CMS employees to Zoom Phone are in motion, and deployment is expected to run from early May through July. 

“It’s a five-phased effort that will take about six to eight weeks to complete because we are doing a certain amount of users every week,” Zarriello says.

As Zoom Phones multiply, some desk phones will go away, particularly at CMS locations that are becoming neighborhood reservation areas. At other offices where desk phones have been assigned Zoom Phone numbers, the desktop devices will be reassigned new numbers. 

“Our long-term goal is to get rid of desk phones,” Zarriello says. “They are just an albatross when no one is there and we are paying for them.”